What is Islam: Top 10 Misconceptions About Islam

What is Islam: The post-9/11 era has seen a rattled increase in Islamophobia across the western world. Whether it´s the rise of Al-Qaeda or xenophobia, the Westerners are addled by the sentiments propagated by the mainstream media. The global wave of terrorism has added fuel to fire. Media propagates every act of terrorism as ¨Islamic Extremism¨, creating a sense of hatred among the masses. These major misconceptions have led to many more misconceptions regarding women, science and tolerance. This senerio seems disastrous.

What is Islam: Top 10 Misconceptions About Islam

It´s the duty of Muslims, especially the youth, to develop a positive image of Islam by awareness and their own character. We have to tell the world the Islam´s connection with all the prophets i.e Jesus, Moses, Abraham, David etc and that the global issues like extremism have cosmopolitan origin irrespective of religious or ethnic identity.The misconceptions are propagated by mainstream media but the misconceptions find their roots in lack of knowledge of Islam, less inter-community interactions and the international actor´s appetite of seizing the global resources. So, it is important to explain that what is Islam and what are the major misconceptions about Islam. Let´s start.

1- Islam & Extremism

After the 9/11 attacks, Islam was targeted by the mainstream media. The post-9/11 era saw outrage against the Muslims. Anti-terror operation was started & Afghanistan was attacked for providing safe havens to the terrorists. Later the war moved to middle east. In the recent past, different European cities have also been attacked. All this scenario led to an increase in Islamophobia, causing trouble for the Muslims especially living in west. Lack of knowledge of Islam has lead to a misconception of connecting Islam with extremism. In reality, Islam is the most peaceful religion as reflected by the life of Holy Prophet, Muhammad (S.A.W).

2- Muslims & Arabs: The analogous terms?

There lies a misconception about Muslims and Arabs: whether all Arabs are Muslims? The answer is no, as there is great diversity among the Arabs. An Arab can be a Muslim, Christian or a Jew. 15 % percent of Arabs are Christians. And secondly, Muslims are not limited to Arab world as they have large populations in South Asia, South-East Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa and they are ethnically diverse. The largest Muslim population lives in Indonesia.

3- Islam & Women

Most of the Westerners think that women are oppressed in Islam and are treated as slaves. But very few know that Islam proved to be revolutionary for the women who were oppressed in pre-Islamic period.

4- Violence

It has been propagated for long that Islam preaches violence but it is a matter of fact that Muslims have fought many times less wars as compared to other religions. Muslims participation in world wars was very limited.

5- Islam & Jesus

It has been a big misconception that Islam and Jesus are not related. But Islam pays a huge respect to Jesus and considers him a Prophet & her mother ¨Mary¨ a virgin. He has also been mentioned in Quran.

6- God of Islam

As in Islam, God is called as ¨Allah¨, but westerners have a misconception that ¨Muslims pray to a different God but in reality Allah is the most appropriate name for God as it has no masculine or feminine.

7- Islam & Science

In the modern world, Islam is mistakenly considered as opposite to science. But historically, Muslims were the pioneers of science in 7th and 8th century AD, a time when the whole world was living in darkness.

8- Hijab

Hijab has not been welcomed by the westerners as they think that it decreases the freedom of women. But in reality, Hijab gives protection to a woman from the evil eyes.

9- Intolerance

It has been propagated that Islam is against globalization and is not tolerant of other religions. But even in an Islamic welfare state, non-Muslims are allowed to live with freedom

10- Islam & Moon

Now-a-days, moon has been symbolically linked with Islam, which lead to a misconception that it is the religion of moon. Actually, moon was first used by Ottomans which latter became a part of flags of Muslim countries. It has relation with Islam.